UI Historian Takes Close Look At Nazis’ First Days In Power

At age 10, Peter Fritzsche started writing history — an ambitious tract devoted to the Roman Empire.

Fifty years later and now a history professor at the University of Illinois, Fritzsche is still writing — his latest in a long series of books being the well-received “Hitler’s First Hundred Days.”

Reviewed favorably in a number of publications — The Wall Street Journal and New York Times, to name just two — Fritzsche’s recent works on European cultural history have evolved into a string of efforts on Nazi Germany and its ruthless dictator, Adolf Hitler.

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But he said Hitler was not solely responsible for the popularity of the movement he led because the demonic, rabidly anti-Semitic leader struck a popular chord among the people.

“There would not have been a Holocaust (but for Hitler), but there would have been a fascist movement,” he said.

As for the Holocaust, Fritzsche said, Hitler “pushed it. He demanded it, and he demanded it all the time. And so it came to be.”